Is Ridemax worth it for us?

[Michaella]

Just wondering if it is worth it to get the Ride Max subscription...


We are a family of four (children 10 and 7) from Australia. We are booked to fly in on 13th Sept.... for 16 nights. We are staying in LA, and SD first then plan on 8/9 nights in Anaheim... with most of that time dedicated to DL. So I am thinking lots of short/half days at the parks.... as opposed to trying to squish as much as possible into 2-3 days.


We have the book "The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2010"

WDYT?

 

[carolinamama]

We just returned from a similar but shorter trip, and we spent 3 full days in the parks. Having never been there, I had both the Unofficial Guide and used Ridemax. Once there, we didn't actually use the plans very much, though. The tips were useful, though. In the end, we road almost everything on our own schedule and using our FP strategy based on what we knew from WDW. We even hit Nemo with only a 15 minute wait at 9 am!

As an aside, I was disappointed that the current version didn't have Silly Symphony Swings.

 

[AmyPond]

I think it really depends on how you like to tour theme parks.

I, personally, would never do ridemax at a theme park because I'm not that much of a planner. I don't like having every minute of the day planned out.

However, I do know that many people DO enjoy that and do like Ridemax.

I think it really depends on your preferred touring style.

On this board, you can get a lot of tips about good times of the day to hit certain attractions. I think info like that can be way more useful and less stressful than an over-planned day.

 

[DirkLogan]

My first trip to DLR as a Father happened about 5 years ago. Previous to that I was either a young adult just winging it or a kid following my parents around.

I did virtually no planning for the trip. I let my sister make some sort of plan and we followed it. It was super miserable, we made all of the classic mistakes. We got to the park late, ate during the peak of lunch time and a pretty mediocre restaurant in the park. We went from line to line to line without getting one fast pass. I did not enjoy the trip as much as I do now.

Since then I have had AP's 3 times and read this board regularly. I bought ridemax. I don't use it in the classic sense although I tried to do so. I use it to make a chart of wait time throughout the day and use it as a guide in addition to my experience and mousewait.

I am a planner and would highly recommend every tool at your disposal. If you want to wing it, I would say you are in for a less than stellar trip. At minimum study this board, in particular, Hydroguy's tips. He is on the money. I would also recommend getting mousewait for your iphone. Ridemax will help you get more in with less waiting. It is not set in stone to follow it, but it is good.

 

[deedeetoo]

I tried Ridemax for this trip (which we are still on) and I don't think I would do it again. For the first thing, the wait times were really wrong on our first day. They had much longer waits for everything than we actually experienced. In fact, I went back at the end of the day and tried to make a plan for that day with everything we had done just to see what would happen, and it told me it couldn't do make a plan and I would have to remove something. The second problem I had was that my family is inclined to ride something if we pass if it has no wait. Couple that with the fact the I had planned on water rides but it ended up being too cold so we skipped them and the plan was pretty much shot.

I think it may have been worth it just to get a general idea of how things fit together and some of the tips were good but in general I wasn't too impressed.

 

[Jazziered]

I got it and I love it.. I went on a day that was so crazy busy they added a third showing of Fantasmic... Yet I rode all the rides I wanted and a couple more not on the list, without hardly any waits, I think like around 18 rides that day...... Plus leave to take a 3 hour afternoon reast.... AND I spent quite a bit of time at Snow whites Grotto, because I love it best... Make sure you do the Sleeping Beauty walk through the castle.. It is a precious little gem.. I think it is great to if you have a "what do you want to ride." I don't care what do you want to ride." type of family. It gives you direction.... And for 15 dollars you can just have fun planning out your trip... I could spend hours goofing off on it.. Doing imaginary trips in my brain...

 

[GrandBob]

The last two weeks of September should be a relatively slow season for DLR. Between that fact, and your desire to do a slow and easy pace with lots of half days, I would say that you'd get little value from RideMax. Indeed, I would expect that most rides will either be walk-ons or short lines. And if you run into a longer line, get a FP or plan to come back when the ride is less busy.

-Bob